INDIANAPOLIS – Chris Ballard has been preparing for this moment for so many years.

The preparation began even before Ballard knew if the moment might come. When he was the secondary coach at Texas A&M-Kingsville, he certainly didn’t know he’d one day be hiring an NFL head coach. And when he was an area scout for the Chicago Bears, he could not have predicted he’d one day sit in the corner office.

But he’s the Indianapolis Colts’ general manager now, and there are few bigger moments for an NFL GM than the day he makes a decision on the team’s new coach. After the firing of Chuck Pagano on Sunday, that moment is nigh.

Ballard has initiated a remake of the Colts’ roster, overseen the 2017 draft and made a range of executive decisions that land on a GM’s desk in the day-to-day operation of the team.

But all of those calls pale in comparison to this one. And that’s why Ballard has been preparing for so long.

He always sought to become a general manager, and that’s how his trusty binder came about. During his years working in front offices from Chicago to Kansas City, Ballard kept a blueprint for how he’d build his team. In it was a plan of action for hiring a coach.

He once showed it to Barry Alvarez, his former coach at Wisconsin.

“I was very impressed,” Alvarez told IndyStar last year. “There were some things that he just really, really nailed. Maybe I didn’t tell him that at the time, but he really did. It let me know that he had the vision. This guy is not shooting from the hip, trust me.”

Owner Jim Irsay on Monday reinforced what anyone who has spent time around Ballard can plainly see. He moves with the confidence of a man who has been empowered by his boss.

“I have had the chance to work with Chris and see what type of general manager the Colts have,” Irsay said. “It’s something that reinforces the hire that was made that’s going to be great for the Indianapolis Colts – no question about it.”

Ballard appears to have significant sway with Irsay. The team recently began an extensive, multi-million dollar expansion and renovation of its football facilities. One of the driving forces behind the move: Ballard’s immediate reaction – upon finding the outdated facilities after being hired last year – was to urge Irsay to make significant upgrades, according to multiple team sources.

Ballard’s influence can also be seen in the list of coaching candidates he’s assembled. A Colts source said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh’s name was recently discussed internally, but the curiosity came from Irsay, not Ballard. Notably, there has been no credible link between the Colts and Harbaugh as the search gets underway. This indicates Ballard’s preferences are taking precedent here.

In short, he’s doing what Irsay hired him to do.

“My philosophy has always been the general manager is head of all football operations,” Irsay said. “The general manager is in charge of leading the search, bringing in candidates, eventually bringing the owner, me, the best candidate or two or three – depending the case, and making his recommendations, or her recommendations. I can’t think of any time – in fact I’m sure there hasn’t been a time – where I haven’t followed the recommendations of what the general manager had recommended to me.”

Along those lines, it was former GM Ryan Grigson who identified Pagano as a candidate in 2012 and brought him to Indianapolis for an interview. At the time, Irsay knew very little about the man they’d ultimately hire to be their new coach, but he trusted his GM.

In this case, Ballard will put all his hard-earned lessons to work. Maybe he’ll even pull out that binder once more.

“At the end of the day, it’s going to be my years of experience, Mr. Irsay’s years of experience in football, and you’ve got a gut feel of when it’s the right guy,” Ballard said. “I think the longer you spend with people, the more time you spend, the better you get to know them. You get a pretty good feel of who that person is and if he’s a good fit and (if) you can have a good working relationship.”